I cleared the nndraft entries from .newsrc.eld - didn't help
immediately, but after restarting Emacs completely everything worked
again.
-- 
Charles Sebold
Random Answer to a Gnus Very Frequently Asked Question:
 Customize gnus-posting-styles to change "From" headers, signatures, etc.
--
7th of Adar, 5761
--
Tech Support excuse #143:

had to use hammer to free stuck disk drive heads